‘Her mama’s girl, the very best kind’
Family and friends remembered Meadow Jade Pollack as a princess whose smile lit up the room. They were angry with the cruelty of her death.
They gathered at Temple K’ol Tikvah in Parkland on Friday afternoon for her funeral. A committal service followed at Star of David Memorial Gardens Cemetery and Funeral Chapel in North Lauderdale.
“You killed my kid. ‘My kid is dead’ goes through my head all day and all night. I keep hearing it over and over,” her father, Andrew Pollack, told the congregation.
His daughter, 18, was one of 17 people killed Wednesday when a gunman opened fire on campus at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Hundreds of friends, family and classmates filled the temple to remember Pollack, support one another and deal with their own grief.
Rabbi Brad Boxman invited those gathered “to wail with each other,” but to remember love — “our true nature, which has been so sorely wounded.”
Andrew Pollack was wracked with the helplessness of a father realizing that sending a child to school could mean leaving them in an unsafe place.
“This is just unimaginable to think I will never see my princess again,” he said. “This piece of s--killed my kid, and I couldn’t do anything about it. That’s never happened to me in my life. I’m always able to protect my family in any situation.”
It was a sentiment shared by Pollack’s big brother, Hunter, who said he mourned the 16 other victims and claimed a special kinship with his sister.
“I always looked out for her,” he said. “I wanted to be the oversupportive brother my whole life and I feel like I failed. So all I can do is hope that [her killer] gets what he deserves.”
Several spoke of Pollack’s love of animals and concern for others. An aunt called Pollack “her mama’s girl, the very best kind.”
Her boyfriend, Brandon Schoengrund, said she was “a partner, a teammate.”
“I knew God blessed me with an angel I would love for the rest of my life,” Schoengrund said.
Boxman saw her as a star with “a smile like sunshine.”
“I believe that God is crying with us, that God is wailing with us,” Boxman said. “Do something to honor her.”
Those at the service included Gov. Rick Scott, U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, School Board members Robin Bartleman and Abby Freedman, and County Commissioner Michael Udine, who called Pollack’s father a friend who had coached his children in lacrosse.
At the memorial gardens, Andrew Pollack held an umbrella to shield himself from the midday sun as his daughter’s pine casket was lowered into the ground.
Rabbi Avraham Friedman told those gathered to not let the evil that took Pollack’s life “define us,” but to live by her “goodness” and “positivity.”